"Ambush Royale": Advanced Rules

Bond...using FORCE ON FORCE from Ambush Alley Games. Check out Ambush Royale in the panel to the right - our house adaptation for secret agent/spy and other pulp action cinema inspired games.

WOUNDS

Wound Charts = With Medic for Named Characters; No Medic for Minions shot by other Minions

Wound Chart Effects for Named Characters (vs. Named / Minions)

• Killed = 2 Wounds / Forced Back
• Serious Wound = 1 Wound / Pinned
• Light Wound = Pinned / Morale Check
• OK = OK / OK

# Wounds = Character loses that number of wounds and makes Morale Check per description below

 Forced Back = Must retreat one move away from enemy and objective, or to the nearest cover away from enemy and objective, whichever is closer.  Character is now pinned

 Pinned = per normal rules

 Morale Check = rolls # of character’s wounds left with the characters Morale level for Morale check per normal rules

Wound Chart Effects for Minions vs. Minions is per normal rules.  Wounds caused from Named Characters is either killed or knocked out the Minions, either way the figure is removed from the game.

GADGETS

Named Character will have the same number of gadgets as Luck dice

Gadgets can be “traded” for other gimmicks at a 1:1 exchange

GIMMICKS

Trademark weapon – 
Named character has a short range (optimine range only) trademark weapon that he/she is very good at (007’s Walter PPK or Oddjob’s hat).  Named character gets a +1d attack at optimine range when using his/her trademark weapon.  When using a trademark weapon, if an attack roll is ½ or more “1’s”, the trademark weapon is lost for the rest of the scenario (out of ammo, damaged, knocked out of the character’s hands, etc.)

Trademark attack – 
Named character has a special hand to hand weapon or attack that he/she is very good at (Jaw’s steel teeth or knife in the shoe tip).  The Named character gets a +2d attack to one enemy with 1” or less of the figure.

Gadgets can be added to a trademark weapon or attack, if it makes sense – Oddjob’s hat could also have a concealable gadget attached to it making the first search attempted by someone on him automatically fail to notice the razor edge on the brim of the hat.

 SKILLS

Main Named characters are assumed to know all of the skills needed for the scenario at his/hers Quality die type (007 can fly, swimming, disarm a bomb, shoot, drive, etc. at his Quality die) – Each player can only have one Main Named Character as part of their force

Supporting Named characters are all others and know the number of skills as their number of Luck dice at the Quality dice type level that is relevant to that characters background (The active female pilot that is tagging along with 007 has a Luck of 3, so the GM assigns her three skills to flying, navigation, and shooting).  Skills not listed for the supporting character is one die type less (The active female pilot is a d10 for flying, but a d8 for disarming the bomb)

Minions are assigned the # of skills ½ of the Quality dice or less that would be relevant to their role and do not know any other skills (A d6 uniformed policeman would have the skills of shooting, driving, and searching for example, where a customs agent would only have searching)

 SECURITY FORCES

INTERVENTION

 Being undercover super spy means that the local police and soldiers don’t know that you really are a good guy and will also try to stop you.  As such, security forces will always attempt to arrest or shoot the closest dangerous suspect.  If 007 is shooting at a mad bomber with hidden bomb, and 007 is 12” away from a policeman and the bomber is 3” away from the policeman, the policeman will attempt to stop 007 first as he is shooting and the bomber appears to be unarmed (unless the policeman passes his search skill roll to notice the bomb)

Joe Collins & Dropship Horizon 2011

   

"Ambush Royale": Bond AAR

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Narrow bridge. Sports car doing 90. An SUV pulls up hard in front and a saloon seals him in behind. Out of each  leaps two mafiya, one with an AK, one with a pistol. As these are mooks its D6 vs, well, D12. 

D12....Bond, James Bond. Oh dear. Dead mookskis all over the shop. Home for tea and medals.

Dum Di-di dum, dum, dum, dum.........

Nah, NAH, Na-nah, Na, Na, Naaaa....

 

So,we  toned 007 to 4xD10 and gave the mafiya initiative. They miss. And that’s giving them 2D per AK. 007 fires back with pistol and drops the two from the SUV. Aha, 007 has to turn to face the guys from the saloon car. That sounds like surrendering the initiative to me and blam! 007 rolls low. One wound! We're going incremental so, that’s 3D10. But guess what, he blats the guy with the AK. Other guy misses and its all over bar the double tap.

OK so 007 is boxed in the bridge and the Polizi are a mere block away. Break the pencil fuse, burn the car, dive over the bridge to where the lads from the SBS have a handy cigar boat waiting……vavroooooooooooom.

Moneypenny. Dinner for two. L'Ecargot

 
Shaken but not stirred

Mark

The Name's..... Bond

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Today I'm mostly working on Bond in 15mm after a small disaster with some terrain I was making yesterday. I just need a diversion before I turn my hand to an elevated section of shattered post-apocalypse highway this evening.

Maff (Master Chef) may be right about leaving the figures from THE SCENE as is. May be. I just feel a bareheaded Bond figure makes a strong contrast to the 'heavies' in dark glasses. But whilst the movie interpretation of Bond doesn't wear dark glasses, there is a big hint in both Craig films that “Bond” is a cover name, that “Bonds” don’t last long and get replaced. So your or my interpretation of Bond may wear Retrosuperfuture or Dior Homme.

The Craig Bond while suave is probably SAS or similar. 'M' talks about “testosterone fuelled special forces mentality”. So theres no harm in going mad and dropping bond in Chechnya, Korea, Sierra Leone or Helmand even. It takes Bond out of the Casino and very definitely into the alley.

Bond may be a fun concept, but I have a sneaking affinity for the more grounded and down at heel British anti-hero agent epitomised by Harry Palmer ("I know everything about you, Colonel Stok... from the size of your refrigerator to the cubic capacity of your mistress") and Charlie Muffin, not so much "3rd man on the balcony" as "3rd man at the buffet." Those dark glasses on The Scene's figures could easily be painted as Michael Caine's trademark thick rimmed 'clear' lenses.

Still with us? All this blurb is my way of putting off painting. Well our good mate Joe Collins has come up with his own house rules for playing Bond using Force on Force. Joe's given us permission to publish and as they are not only good but also typed up, which has a quality all of it's own, whereas the dubious ramblings by Maff and myself are still scribblings in my notebook, I'll post them on Dropship this Friday.

Cheers

Mark

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Force on Force: Shaken Not Stirred

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- Do you expect me to roll a 6 Goldfumbler? -

- No! I expect you to pass your TQ Die Mr Bond -

Maff (the Master Chef) is currently sunning himself on a  luxury yacht of wargaming creativity in his new modern imagi-nation hot spot on the Adriatic.  A playground for Russian Mafia, Alcovian criminal masterminds and Dodjy militia warlords.

Force on Force has a new mission. Should it choose to accept it. FoF doesn't have to be purely about guncrawls in the alleys of Baghdad, the poppy fields of Helmund or the villages of Chechnya. When the chips are down, there's plenty of scope for a sharp dressed Englishman in a dinner jacket with a babe and a high TQ Die at his side.

Seriously, a couple of morning commutes on the train and I've sussed playing secret agent pulp games with  Force on Force. Borku Riviera on the Adriatic, Yeah, I know there's other rules out there dedicated to this type of game, but I'm not going to buy them, and let's give FoF it's due - that's where we got on the inspiration bus in the first place.

This is where the Asset and Fog of War Cards come into their own. The Asset Cards in particular, as they can be guns, gear, gadgets and Bond Babes. Now, don't get too hung up on the tech side of the gadgets. You can assume your Double 0, has the right gadget to hand each time and gets one 'shot' before discarding.

The Hotspots and Reinforcement tables? Think about a Bond movie.....a diverse array of enemies appearing out of nowhere! It's crying out to be played.

Plus, it makes one hell of a drinking game - just add a half dozen 'Martini' Asset Cards to the stack. Every time you draw a Martini card, you have to drink one - shaken, and not stirred, of course.

Cheers!

Mark

Force on Force: The Dogs Cojones

Master Chef got his copy of Force on Force last week courtesy of Amazon and he thinks "it's the Dogs....!"

Wednesday evening is our usual wargame night and I haven't known him to be so animated some time and it was infectious.

We talked through rough and ready mini-campaigns in the style mentioned on Dropship a week or so ago. Missions generated randomly via a homegrown mission generator whilst Russian Mafia and a wild card SF team is in the AO and on call to join in the merry mayhem.

Maff  also had the great idea of using a 'MAROON' style random alleyway generator to create back streets alleyways and souks for a lightning speed, in your face game that rolls across the table. Forget tactics if you want a heart stopping, taste the blood in your mouth solo game beyond which car or trash skip to hide behind. Me, I'm a Full Spectrum Warrior, - need at least one mouse hole or alleyway to get behind the bastards and banjo their AK47 tango arses, kind of tabletop commander.

Cheers

Mark

Force on Force: Free Form Campaign

Still undergoing tests for my collapse at work, so it's been quietly distracting this week to be able to reach for Osprey Publishing's new Force on Force and just dip into the pages.

The free-form campaign rules included within Force on Force have me hooked. Small scale, simple, encourage play and feed results straight back into the next game. Reminiscent of FAD v4. I played them campaign through on paper a couple of times and found it reminded me of the excerpt from "War" by Sebastian Junger I read last summer in one of the saturday broadsheets.

as a result created the small break away province of Slavikova within Eli's Crisis in Alcovia blog. Where the militias have taken over and the region needs to be brought back under control.

What I particularly like is the fact that there's no one size fits all approach. The campaign can be played from either a "regular" or insurgent perspective, where you get to build the insurgency through your military prowess on the battlefield. Needless to say, lot's of potential for a Ghost Recon style campaign, chronicling the headaches of Starshina Grojny and his Motor Rifle Platoon, plus near future, post apocalypse and military orientated Fi settings.

Cheers

Mark

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Some Thoughts on Force on Force

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Not long now till Ambush Alley Games' Force on Force is released via the Osprey Publishing stable.

It a cracking wargames publication. The best I've seen to date and a joy to own let alone use. I've said this before. But there has to be more it it than just being pretty, or is it just the Emperors New Clothes - all batter and no Mars Bar?

The truth of the matter is that FoF has it's detractors and it's exponents. It's not for everybody. Let's not pretend in any way, shape or form it is.But if I, yes me, could choose one game system on the market right now to have been designed by me in some alternative universe - Force on Force and I have to say, it's forthcoming fully fledged future variant Tomorrow's War, is it.

In Tomorrow's War, I am delighted Shawn was able to capture my vision of a netcentric future battlefield and turn a few scribblings into a coherent whole without allowing it to overpower the game.

Where they both win for me, is on the granularity they give the soldier and his ability to perform in combat. Together with a combat system that becomes intuitive very quickly.

This is a game engine to savour.  It's a fine dining experience rather than a fast meal. For me a Sunday afternoon where I can think about my tactics to reflect my troops rather than just banging miniatures across the table and rolling a +1.

Cheers

Mark

In The Pipe...... Force on Force from Osprey Publishing

I have in my hands a review copy of Osprey Publishing/Ambush Alley Games' forthcoming hardback Force on Force: Modern Wargaming Rules.

Without doubt this has to be the most professional and visually stunning set of wargame rules I've ever seen.  Wargame rules aside, it's a joy to have, to read, to dip into and simply just browse.

Force on Force is illustrated throughout with good quality colour photos of painted modern 15 & 20mm figures in action settings, plus in theatre photos of real troops and weaponry, all supplemented by colour images culled from Osprey's catalogue of modern uniform, battle and campaign titles.

The book is threaded throughout with scenarios, and has a dedicated scenario section at the end. Force on Force also includes sample small scale unit information for all the major nations, unit and vehicle attributes, vehicle charts, special rules for asymmetric warfare, a campaign game, and finally full colour Fog of War cards and Quick Reference pages to cut-out or copy. All in all 224 pages of inspiring goodness!

Is it just for Iraq and Afghanistan? No!  Scenarios run the full gamut from Vietnam, to Top Malo House in the Falklands, Golan Heights to the centre of Grozny.

If you've already played Force on Force from Ambush Alley Games, you know what to expect. For the rest I'll cover the rules in more detail at the end of this coming week. But do check out the FoF Primer on the Ambush Alley website.

RRP is £25 and Amazon.co.uk are currently taking pre-orders at £17.50. Is Force on Force worth £17.50? Damn, it's worth £25! I own the original pdf and I would still have bought buy the new hardback if I hadn't been sent this copy by the publisher.

Force on Force: Modern Wargaming Rules represents a line in the sand in wargames rules publishing. I can see this book appealing to many non-wargamers let alone non-C20th gamers. It is nothing less than a tribute to the hobby and a great ambassador for wargaming.

The rules are cracking too!

Review of Road to Baghada: Iraq 2003

Cheers

Mark

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Ambush Alley: Force on Force

I thought Ambush Alley was THE most innovative set of warging rules since Arty Conliffe's CROSSFIRE.

I was wrong. AMBUSH ALLEY: FORCE ON FORCE has just blown me away!

Force on Force by Shawn Carpenter is a stand on it's own game that utilises the core mechanics from Ambush Alley to play engagements between regular forces rather than regulars vs. insurgents battles. Reading through Force on Force, OMG! OMG! OMG! kept repeating in my head. This could well be my personal holy grail of wargaming.

I particularly like the initiative system that has a more considered approach than Crossfire yet still manages to capture a fluid combat environment. This is not a set of mechanics that have been threaded together to bake a set of rules. Rather, Force on Force is a thoughfully designed, well oiled and balanced machine.

The focus is on platoon / reinforced platoon sized actions played on 2 foot by 2 foot or 2 foot by 3 foot tables from WW2, through Post-War, Modern and into the Near Future. No Panzer Korps here! Which make's it all so immensely 'do-able' by the average gamer. A Sci Fi supplement is being developed.

I'm going to be shaking the rules down over the coming weeks, playing several games with a Near Future or Sci Fi twist as the situation in Hyboria deteriorates into border clashes. I'll post these games on the Blog, so keep watching.

For more information on Force on Force go to Ambush Alley Games website: (Click here). I thoroughly recommend a visit if just to pinch the scenarios and mini-campaigns!

Cheers
Mark